Lost Neighborhoods

Lost Neighborhoods

An oil painting featuring abstract houses in various shades of reds, yellows, and oranges on a light cream background.

“Lost Neighborhoods”

November 24 – December 30
Open daily, 10am to 5pm

Free to all!

Barbara Stevens Adams, Peter Cady, Tom Glover, and Dustan Knight team up to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the founding of Portsmouth by remembering what used to be. Through their paints and brushes, these four talented artists depict the lost neighborhoods of our beloved city such as the North End, old Puddle Dock, the West End and others. Works will be on display and available for sale from November 24 through December 30 in the balcony gallery at Portsmouth Historical Society.

You’re Invited!

An oil painting featuring abstract houses in various shades of reds, yellows, and oranges on a light cream background.

Opening Reception
Sunday, November 26, 3–5 pm

An oil painting featuring abstract houses in various shades of reds, yellows, and oranges on a light cream background.

Evening Artists Chat
Friday, December 8, 5–7 pm

Barbara Adams

Barbara Stevens Adams began her art involvement while practicing as a psychotherapist in New Haven, Connecticut. Following her move to New Hampshire in 1990 she continued to pursue her art explorations which now have taker her to her current passion with oils and soft pastels. Barbara is a founding member and the past president of the Pastel Society of New Hampshire, a juried member of the New Hampshire Art Association, a Signature Member of the Pastel Painters of Maine, and a member of Kittery Art Association, Seacoast Art Association, and Newburyport Art Association. the focus of her art is frequently themes from her en plein air painting excursions, her abstract exploration, and her enjoyment of the many moods of the New England coast. Although no longer practicing in her profession as a psychotherapist, Barbara has continued to be an active supporter of community agencies. She supports, through her art, NH Public Television, Womenaid of Greater Portsmouth, Portsmouth Music and Art, and Seacoast Pathways.

Dunstan Knight

Dustan Knight is a working artist living in New Castle, a small island near Portsmouth, NH. She earned her MFA at Pratt Institute in NYC during the eighties, and an MA in Art History from Boston University. After years of teaching college and graduate art classes, she has returned full-time to her studio. As a mature artist, Dustan is able to step away from the politics of the art world and delve deeply into what matters most to her. Her art practice has exploded into powerful, abstracted images that celebrate the physicality of her materials and refer to her personal experiences in her PLACE.

Dustan Knight Fine Artist

 @dustyknightofficial

Peter Cady

Peter Cady grew up on the coast of New Hampshire. His study of painting began as a boy observing painters with their easels overlooking the ocean. He studied civil engineering but found he was drawn to things artistic and to working with his hands. After college, he worked in construction and learned fine woodworking. He still lives in the timber-framed house he built from his trees. His furniture making started to incorporate color and a variety of materials, evolving into sculpture. After a second career of teaching science to middle school students, he returned to the arts. He has gotten to know and learn from many fine painters like the ones in this group.

Peter Cady

 @pcadycreates

Tom Glover

Tom Glover was born in Keene, NH. He graduated with a BFA degree in painting at the University of New Hampshire, Durham, and worked closely with the Maine painter John Laurent up until Laurent’s death in 2005. He studied painting restoration with the conservator Anthony Moore in York, Maine. For several years he lectured at the University of Connecticut to science education graduate students on “The Landscape, Mythology, and the Artist.” He has also taught painting at the UNH Department of Continuing Education, and at workshops on the Isles of Shoals. Currently, he teaches painting at Sanctuary Arts in Eliot, Maine.

Tom Glover

 Tom Glover

 @tomgloverart

This exhibition is a part of the Portsmouth NH 400 celebrations.
33rd Annual Gingerbread House Contest & Exhibition: Downtown Retailer Sign-up

33rd Annual Gingerbread House Contest & Exhibition: Downtown Retailer Sign-up

For the fourth year, we are inviting downtown retailers to join us in celebrating the season!

If you have a storefront window and would like to host a gingerbread house, read on to apply.

Are you a business without a storefront in the immediate Market Square area? You can submit a house in the “Business/Organization” category of general registration. Click here!

A gingerbread house in a storefront window

Retail Partner Requirements:

  • Retailers must be within walking distance of Market Square.
  • Retailers must have a prominent storefront window space large enough to accommodate a 15″x15″ gingerbread creation.
  • Retailers must keep the gingerbread creation and accompanying label on display between Nov. 24 and Dec. 23.
  • Retailers must agree to stamp/initial scavenger hunt “maps” of participants.

How It Works:

  • We will include a maximum of 20 retail partners.
  • Scavenger hunt participants will have to collect stamps/initials from 80% of retail partners (if we have 20 partners, they will have to collect 16 of 20).
  • Each creation will have a small label with a QR code linking to an information page on the PHS website.
  • PHS will provide stamps and a few maps to retailers; maps will also be available at PHS and for download on our website.
  • Completed forms will be returned to PHS for entry into a raffle made up of gift cards and merchandise donated by participating retail partners and the Museum Shop.
A gingerbread house in a storefront window

Portsmouth Historical Society agrees to:

  • Inform the retail partners if they will be receiving a house by October 27
  • Deliver a gingerbread house (unless retailer agrees to provide their own) on Wednesday, November 22.
  • If a retail partner is providing their own house, it is subject to the same rules as all registrants, namely that all materials must be edible (with the exception of string lights), and the base must be no larger than 15” x 15”.
  • Provide a limited number of scavenger hunt maps for the business to distribute to their customers.
  • Provide stamps to mark participants’ scavenger hunt “maps.”
  • List the business name and website on our scavenger hunt map and on the PHS website and on our social media accounts.

The applicant understands that completing this agreement does not guarantee participation, as Portsmouth Historical Society does not yet know the final number of houses we will have to distribute.

Brewster Series: Bark Basket Making Workshop

Brewster Series: Bark Basket Making Workshop

Bark basket with an outline of a tree sewn onto the front

Learn traditional bark basket making techniques

Photos by Ted B. Sierad, Ed & Helen Pelletier

Small bark basket with a leather string tied around the center.

Learn about our workshop leader, Jennifer Lee

Artist Statement:

These bark baskets are made from the trees around my house. Following the season of “loose bark moon” or when the bark is slipping, the bark is peeled from a ladder so it won’t get ruined during felling. By selectively thinning the forest, which is a 45 year overgrown apple orchard, I’ve sustained my bark basket supply and improved the woods.

Historical accounts of the use of Ash, Oak, Pine, Spruce, Elm, Chestnut, Linden and Birch barks to cover wigwams encouraged me to try different barks for baskets. These baskets are made from trees that shaded the garden and needed to be taken down.
Buffalo or Bison is the material culture of the Nations of the Western Plains: the Lakota and the Osage. Bark is the material culture of the Northeast woodland tribes: the Abenaki, Ojibway, Narragansett and Pequot.

Joy describes the feeling of taking only bark roots and branches, and making something strong and usable in the tradition of my Native ancestors. People get so happy and proud when they fashion something so beautiful and durable from the woods. The trees make a way for me to share, celebrate, express, participate and contribute.

Museum Closed-Christmas Day

Museum Closed-Christmas Day

Image of the Portsmouth History Center with a two-story brick building from c.1810 making up the right-hand portion of the image with a more down brick and glass building from the 1950s.

Portsmouth Historical Society Closed 12/25

The historical society will be closed on Monday, December 25 in observation of Christmas Day. We will reopen the next day, Tuesday, December 26 at 10 a.m with both the 33rd Annual Gingerbread Contest and Exhibition and “Lost Neighborhoods” on display.